


some high school kids and the woods they like too much

by bastardorphan (wwanderingproxy)



Series: some high school kids and the woods they like too much [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, some fun topics im skirting around here huh, the woods are mentioned like once idk why i titled it that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 03:42:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9581723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wwanderingproxy/pseuds/bastardorphan
Summary: "They have a thing going. Of sorts."A bad person with some good in him, and a good person with some bad in her. They meet up, occasionally.





	

**Author's Note:**

> aaaaaa i dont know what this is, i hope it has no connection to my real account. i was just pissed and wrote this with some really old characters.
> 
> literally not beta'd at all, i wrote this like ten minutes ago. turn away now.

 

  
It’s a Zachary night, Mae decides on a whim. She’s, fuck, she’s so goddamn... Ugh. Squeezing her eyes shut, she shoves the tin back into it’s little hole, the stupid magicians logo on the top printed behind her eyelids. She remembers in stupidly specific detail when he got that box, because it’d been hers originally. It’s not even a fucking interesting story, just her father asking for the tin from a nine year old Mae, claiming he’d have better use for it. She hadn’t been using it, so she gave it over willingly. Now there was fucking weed in it. “I quit” her ass.

It’d already been kind of a godawful night, and she’d been looking for Guitar Hero to repress the urge to hurt herself when she found the tin. Out of a stupid curiosity, she’d opened it to see what he was using it for. Now she just felt fucking cheated, but hey, didn’t wanna rip her own veins out anymore. Just her dads. She storms upstairs, scooping her phone up off the bed, opening her chat with a contact named ‘Asshole.’

They have a thing going. Of a sort. They text, they make fun of each other, they meet up in the middle of the night and comfort each other on occasion. Depending on who requests the meeting, there’s a different script.

Last time, it’d been Zachary. _> Hey, shitstain_ , reads the text at the beginning of their last conversation. (‘shitstain’ is her contact name in his phone, shes pretty sure. shes actually jealous he thought of it first. the insults dont hurt, as long as he doesnt call her a failure, and he doesnt. he knows it hurts, so he doesnt.) _> Park?_   is the entire rest of the text. He's referring to a park on the edge of the woods, their woods. Her and her friends hang out there all the time, and it's kind of fitting that the outskirts of it is where she meets up with Zach.

She had replied, _ < Sure, fuckwad_, and left the house, meeting at the park they always do.

Her job then is a consort, a distraction. Insult him, but not too hard. Make him laugh. Make fun of republicans. Don’t comment on the crack in his voice, the way he flinches when she pushes at him playfully.

Now, she writes, _< Asshole, you up?_   (he used her contact name last time, so she responds in kind. it doesnt hurt, unless she calls him a waste of space. she knows that hurts, so she doesnt.)

 _> Yeah?_ he replies. Nothing more, nothing less.

_< Park?_

_> Yeah._

And just like that the deal is sealed. She pulls on her coat, her shoes, stuffs her phone in her pocket. Walks out. He’s waiting in the darkness when she gets there; He lives closer than her dad’s house.

His job now is a listener, a friend. Wait for her to snarl out whatever is bothering her that night. Respond kindly, maybe engage her with some angry discussion about the thing, then they’ll both relax and chat. It’s a script that works well, so she uses it. “He’s still fucking on drugs.”

“Oh,” he replies, walking over to the swings. She follows, still seething.

“The least he could do is not fucking lie about it. All I found was the weed, but I don’t doubt he’s still on the other shit. It’d make a lot of sense, considering all his recent bullshit.”

“The bastard.” It’s genuine, but.

But it rubs her the wrong way this time, so she lets the conversation relax sooner than normal. Starts swinging back and forth casually. “Ugh. How’d you do on the Science test?”

“Eighty four,” he says, sounding only mildly surprised that she’s dropping it. “You?”

“Ninety six. I’m convinced number four was a trick question honestly.”

“Same, I haven’t met a single person who’s gotten it right.”

Her friends don’t like Zachary. She doesn’t blame them. He’s a bit of a douchebag. But so is she, and that’s why they fit so well together.

It’s a little bit poetic, how he’s their enemy and yet fits in with them, and how she fits in with them. Poetry was always Rose’s thing though, and it hurts to think about them. To think about Virginia in general really. She’s in Connecticut now, has been since a month into freshman year. She has to move on and forget the last place just like she did every time.

But, her friends. They text her in the middle of the night, and they’re never pleased.

 

_[the good clique]_

_> NotSoStraight: whos awwake_

_> galewinds: when am i not_

_> WheatKing: present_

_> elizzie: im_

_< actualJD: yeah but im out_

_> NotSoStraight: use protection_

_< actualJD: shut your whore mouth im with zach_

_> robotics: w h y_

_< actualJD: is offline_

She closes the messaging app, making a face at her screen.

“Who?”

“My friends.”

“Ah.”

He knows they don’t like him. He knows why too, and she should probably feel guilty for hanging out with him, but she just can’t.

He’s hurt a lot of people. He’s hurt her friends. Rumors spread about Joshua come to mind. A crying Lizzie, shut in her locker. Angela, running off, gaslighted by them for a month or two. Dissapearing for three days. She’s ruined people for hurting her friends before, and they hadn’t even gone that far.

But she can’t bring herself to bring him down, because she’s hurt a lot of people too. Images of a kid, a freshman who should really be in middle school, bleeding from lacerations on his inner arms (vertical ones. he’d known what he was doing.) flash through her head. Another kid, same year. Scared of her. She’d wanted so bad for people to be afraid of her back in seventh. Funny that she hated it so much now. A DM conversation she’s hidden far under her other conversations, hopefully never to see the light of day again, detailing the end of the mess she created in her New York middle school with rat poison and some toxic ideas about developmental disorders.

So. She can’t judge.

“How do unrepentant assholes move on with their lives after high school?” she wonders absently. “Do they realize how terrible they were?”

“Are you asking me, because I’d like to remind you I’m still a junior,” Zach huffs, darkly amused.

“Oh, shut. You feel guilty and you know it.”

“So do you.”

“Did I ever deny it?”


End file.
